Thursday, August 21, 2014

Hola Madrid!

Doesn't this face say 'I'm going to crush Madrid'? Jess was ready to rumble with the capital of Spain as soon as we got into the city. We had left Jerez that morning, saying farewell to the South and heading into the center of the the country. We also had to say goodbye to Steve, Cindy, Lori and Chico. It had been nice travelling with them and I would not have had the opportunity to see Cadiz and Jerez the way I did if it had not been for them.

We arrived in Madrid by train at Atocha railway station before having to navigate the large station to their metro line. We were in a bit of a hurry as we had a time set up to meet our Air BNB host Ivan. We hustled and hurried, navigating the metro system to end up at Chueca where our apartment for our short stay would be.

We learned that our small one studio apartment was in Justicia which is one of the more gay friendly neighbourhoods in Madrid. Our friendly host Ivan met us as we left the metro station. If he had not been saying Jess' name, we would have walked on past him in our hurry to be on time. He showed us to the apartment building where we had to walk up several flights of stairs to reach our temporary home. I fine with stairs but the fact that the building looked to be under renovation was a bit discouraging. It gave the building a bit of a condemned feel to it.

Once we reached the apartment, he organized ourself with Ivan about the going ons of the place and how to use the locks. He was very helpful, giving us a map and showing us where to go for certain things. My memories of when I was last in Madrid gave me a small sense of direction but it was still helpful to get his opinion.

After saying goodbye we came up with a game plan to walk to the palace, stopping in Plaza Mayor before eventually reaching the Temple of Debod.

The weather was not being very nice to us as we walked through Plaza Mayor before checking out a market place. Nothing peaked our interests so we kept walking and came to the Palace where there was a large line stretching along it. As our AirBNB host suggested that we could get in for free we joined the line. Upon reaching the front we learned it was just for EU residents only and we would have to pay if we wanted to see it. Feeling bummed out we skipped the Palace and walked onwards.

It was good that the sun was making an appearance as we reached the Temple of Debod which is an ancient Egyptian temple that was rebuilt in Madrid. The temple was in Egypt until 1960 when the construction of the Great Dam of Aswan posed a threat to it. Egypt donated the temple to Spain as a sign of gratitude for the help in saving the temples of Abu Simbel. The temple it free to go into and we only had a short wait to go inside and check it out. Unfortunately it was quite dark inside so you could not really see everything. I am sure they have reasons behind keeping it so dark but I wish I had been able to see more of the hieroglyphs on the walls.

After visiting the temple we walked back to the apartment to have a dinner and eventually go to sleep.